Ohhhh kitchen...

Chef F is running the restaurant right now.  Today was the first day and I have to admit--I'm completely overwhelmed.  

El C and the PDX, head to head.

The ex called me on Sunday.  He's the good one.

"El C" calls me to shoot the shit almost every Sunday, like it's a bad compulsion.  Since the first week we met he has called me every Sunday, like I'm his one religious habit.  I used to find this incredibly annoying (right after the break up) but it's now taken on a certain endearing quality.  For all our arguing and the world's most dramatic breakup, it doesn't derail the fact that we want to be in each others lives.  I thought this meant it was becoming a real friendship.

Apparently not.  El C is all declarations of love these days, all tears and whines that I left Chicago, nothing but long lists of apologies...he keeps saying this awful phrase: "I can be the man you want".  He doesn't seem to understand that there's nothing wrong with the way he is right now, never was anything wrong with him.  It's been a year now and I still have to explain that I adore him, adore all the people in my life, but we're just not going to be in the same place for a while.  This time though, when I tell him, he offers to move out here.

You know, I almost said yes.  I thought about how much I need a friend, a person to hang out with and talk movies with and make stupid faces at.  Someone who understands that I'm quiet when I think and loud when I don't, which is why you want me quiet during a conversation.  He knows the important stuff:  leave her alone when she's reading, unless real madrid is playing.  Make sure the books are around, there is food to cook, things to do with my hands.  He gets all that, of course I want him here!  Until I remember he wants to be here to be with me and that's just something I can't have right now.

So, I say no.  He demands to know if there is anyone else and I tell him the truth, I've got nothing but me and a few close friends.  No boyfriends or lust on the horizon.  I'm busy though, career is in check, I am in check, life is mostly in check...I'm making it work, you know?  I miss him being my best friend but I can't invite him back into my life in any other way.  He insists this means he needs to stop talking to me.  I guess that was inevitable but it made my Sunday totally miserable.  Luckily, there were a couple of bright spots to the day.

The whole ordeal made me homesick.  I know why I came here, at least the reason I put on paper, but I miss home in an unimaginable way now.  Maybe it's because I spoke to so many Chicagoans on Sunday, maybe it's because one of them was hating Portland so passionately (or hating me, that's a story for another day entirely) or maybe it's just because it's fucking Chicago but I lost my shit today.  I started calling people, craving news from home.  Started making mexican food like I was possessed by a dozen abuelitas--I fell into complete regret about the choice I had made.

I'm okay now but for a while there...too, too rough.

Let's see what this week brings.